Autistic Baker Doug Mann Sells Specialty Fares and Challenges Stereotypes
By Ellen Orr

Growing up, 37-year-old Doug Mann accredited his social discomfort to his status as a white English-speaking person in a predominantly Hispanic community.

“I grew up about a mile from Mexico, and so almost everyone I went to school with was Hispanic, spoke Spanish at home, and was very culturally different from me,” he reflected. “I was the minority. I didn’t fit in for obvious reasons.”

When he left his hometown of Brownsville for Abilene Christian University, he still felt out of place, but he attributed it to being surrounded almost exclusively by other white people for the first time. “I felt uncomfortable around white people; I couldn’t tell them apart,” he said.

After completing his undergrad, Doug attended Western Washington University on a scholarship, where he earned a master’s degree in history—but even with an advanced degree, he could not find work in his field.

“So I moved back home,” he said, referring to Texarkana, where his parents had retired. “I tried to figure out what to do. I knew some people through church growing up that had been physical therapists, and I like old people, so I decided, ‘Well, I’ll do that.’” He completed prerequisite science courses in Texarkana before enrolling in a doctoral program at the University of Central Arkansas.

School was incredibly taxing. “I didn’t [yet] know that I learned better by doing than by reading,” he reflected. “I didn’t know so much about myself.” Still, highly intelligent and determined, he succeeded academically and aced his board exams in 2019. Completing his clinicals, however, proved to be detrimental to his health; the social energy required sapped him of vitality. He found himself intensely fatigued, unable to focus, emotionally dysregulated, and withdrawn. Though he didn’t yet have the vocabulary to describe it, Doug was experiencing severe autistic burnout.

After moving back in with his parents, Doug sought support from a therapist, who referred him to a neuropsychiatrist. The neuropsychiatrist diagnosed him as autistic and explained the causes of his burnout.

“Basically, [autistic burnout] happens a lot of times when people don’t know they are autistic, and they’re ‘masking’: they’re trying to basically not be themselves, to be how they’re ‘supposed to be,’ to fit into the standard,” Doug explained. After a sustained period of trying to fit into a neurotypical mold, neurodivergent people like Doug simply crash. Autistic burnout causes heightened sensory sensitivities, loss of executive functioning and basic life skills, exhaustion, and despair. It is a devastating condition that, for Doug, lasted multiple months.

“That time is fuzzy,” he said. “I just tried to help around the house, do little things, and figure out what I was going to do next—because I definitely couldn’t be a physical therapist.”

Somewhere, Doug got the idea to try baking. He checked out cookbooks from the Texarkana Public Library and watched YouTube videos. He began with basic cookies and cakes—none of which he himself could eat, as a gluten-intolerant person.

“I just enjoyed the process,” he said, “so [not being able to eat my baked goods] was not a big deal to me.”

He shared his goodies with his parents and neighbors, who raved about them. But before long, Doug was baking at such a velocity that his family and friends could not eat as fast as he could bake. He started donating to the Randy Sams Outreach Shelter and the Salvation Army Shelter.

Doug’s confectionaries were a hit: people loved eating what he made. And, equally important, Doug loved the making.

“[Baking] makes me feel good,” he said. “It’s multi-sensory, and I like all the learning. There’s a lot of precision and a lot of rules, but when you learn all the rules and how things work and why they work that way, you can learn a little bit how to adjust it and make it your own. I like that.”

While discovering the world of baking, Doug was also venturing into a world of self-discovery as a newly identified autistic person.

“[Being diagnosed as autistic] felt kind of comforting,” he said, “because you kind of feel like you’re broken if you can’t do anything [during burnout]. But if you can find a reason for why you’re like that, it makes a lot of things click about why you are the way you are, the things you like to do, how you’re different.

“You have to relearn who you are, because you were kind of trying to fit into the mold your whole life,” he continued. “And then you learn something like that about yourself and have to figure out where to go from here.”

Doug realized that a 9-to-5 job was never going to be a sustainable path for him. Nor was anything that required very much sitting, social interaction, or harsh sensory experiences. So, when friends and family encouraged him to give professional baking a try, he realized that it might be the perfect fit.

Better Bits Bakery launched just before Thanksgiving 2022. Doug operates out of his home kitchen, which is entirely gluten-free. He also bakes some vegan products and primarily serves customers who have food allergies or intolerances.

“I only bake gluten-free, and there’s no one else around here that does that,” he said. “People offer gluten-free [products], but they’re made in a facility that does non-gluten-free also. I have customers that, if they get even a little gluten, they’ll be sick for a week, so they’re not going to [buy from just] anywhere. They’ve been ‘glutened’ at restaurants, when they’d ordered ‘gluten-free’ things.”

Doug does not take health issues lightly. He said that all he learned about the human body during his doctoral program has given him a somewhat unique perspective.

“I’ve learned about all of the different conditions and how the body works,” he said. “We had gross anatomy labs, cut cadavers open, and all that. So I really do understand when people tell me they have Hashimoto’s or other thyroid issues or other chronic conditions.”

Helping people through physical therapy was not the right path for Doug, but through baking specialized treats, he helps chronic-illness patients in another, sweeter way.

“What I like about baking like this is that you get to know the people, and they’re appreciative. It’s not like you’re ‘just baking cookies’; if you’re not making it for them, they’re not going to get it,” he said. “I bake birthday cakes for people who haven’t had a cake in years.”

Just as food allergies and intolerances are widely misunderstood, so too is autism, which is why Doug bills himself not just as a baker but as an autistic baker.

“I don’t like the way that people stereotype autistic people as either they can’t do anything and they’re sitting in the corner rocking, or they all like to play with trains or do math,” he shared. “You can do whatever it is that’s your thing. There shouldn’t be a stereotype, and I want to bring more awareness to that.”

Doug imagines a world in which young neurodivergent people who don’t fit the current stereotype of autism are more able to be identified as autistic.

“If I had known 15 years ago that I was autistic, I might be in a bakery today, instead of baking out of my [home] kitchen,” he said. “So, little by little, I hope to change people’s perspectives.”

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